The four antiphoners Salamanca, Catedral-Archivo Musical, 5, 6, 7, and 8 are the only surviving examples of manuscripts for the Office from the cathedral of Salamanca during the Middle Ages. Written in the 14th or 15th centuries, they clearly predate the Council of Trent in their contents and format, although in general, they contain a number of additions by later, post-Tridentine hands. The numerous additions by a later hand in codices 5 and 6 indicate that these codices remained in use after the reforms of the Council of Trent. While all four manuscripts are in a generally poor state of repair, the situation is at its worst with the two large antiphoners for the Proper of the saints, mss. 7 and 8; here what originally were probably historiated initials have all been excised, with some damage to the following folios in each case. Numerous lacunae exist where certain folios were removed from the manuscripts. The excised initials have been supplied in the file for purposes of searching. The present index reflects the best attempts one can make to reconstruct the original state of the manuscript given the generally bad state of repair of the remaining folios and the obvious difficulties presented by numerous lacunae in the manuscript, in many instances where valuable rubrics or other indications of specific liturgical occasions have been permanently lost. While early documentary references refer to a bishop Eleuterio of Salamanca attending the Third Council of Toledo in 589, no Mozarabic sources from Salamanca have survived. A history of the Salamancan liturgy necessarily stems from the time of the twelfth-century reconquest under Alfonso VI, whose daughter Urraca and her husband, Count Raymond of Burgundy, began the restoration of the city and founded the episcopal see on 22 June 1102. The construction of the cathedral and establishment of its chapter of canons date from the twelfth century. The size of the cathedral and its limitations for liturgical celebration eventually necessitated the construction of a new cathedral; this began on 12 May 1513 and the new buildings were officially consecrated in 1560. Paleographical traits and liturgical characteristics of these four antiphoners indicate that they were used in the old cathedral and may have been gradually replaced once the new cathedral was established for worship and the reforms of the Council of Trent (1545-63) had been implemented in the diocese of Salamanca. These four antiphoners form part of a series of fifty-two manuscripts, all used in the liturgical life of the cathedral throughout the centuries and all currently housed in the Archive of the Cathedral of Salamanca. The contents of the first ten predate the Council of Trent and therefore are considered properly medieval. Manuscripts 5, 6, 7 and 8 are the four antiphoners which belong to this group of manuscripts and thus demonstrate the Proper chants for the Office in use in Salamanca during the medieval period. All chants not found in CAO have been assigned an arbitrary number prefixed by "sal"; the differentiae are labelled with a letter-number combination (the letter indicates the final pitch of the differentia, and the number is arbitrarily assigned).

Boyce, James, O. Carm., Lacoste, Debra and Mitchell, Andrew. "Newly-Discovered Manuscripts for an Old Tradition: The Salamanca Choirbooks," forthcoming in Cantus Planus, Proceeds of the 1998 meeting in Visegrád, to be published by the Hungarian Institute of Musicology.

Indexing notes:

The index for E-SA 8 was prepared by James Boyce, O. Carm. with editorial assistance from Andrew Mitchell (University of Western Ontario).